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as many of you are probably aware, Card based the Homecoming series off, loosely, of the Book of Mormon, one of the additional texts of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints...
I am attempting to do similar with the Bible, and figured that the Bible is plenty old enough, someone else has had to have tried it already, and I thought I might benefit from reading any books that do the same... you know, make sure i do things different enough not to be called a copy-cat or anything :P
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Tons of novels have been written about the Bible. It's a pretty broad topic. What part, specifically, were you going to base your writing on?
Depending on how much you change the particulars, there really aren't any limits on what you can do. I've seen novels with exactly the same storyline as say . . . the story of Jacob and Esau, just set in Scotland in the 1800's, for example. Or the life of a slave in the house of one of the people Paul converts to Christianity.
There are so many themes in the Bible that most novels touch on at least a couple of them, intentionally or not.
[This message has been edited by autumnmuse (edited March 20, 2005).]
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i intend on concentrating on the creation and possibly up to the flood... if i find it to be successful i might try to pull an entire series and try to cover the entire Bible front to back (cutting a LOT of stuff out of course...)
my main characters are Jethresh Krishtov and Luke Shiver, who are God and Satan respectively. so my story basically is going to follow the action that goes on between God and Satan rather than any specific story within the Bible over any other.
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The Bible was the first mass produced book. It has been adapted and reused thousands of times in every genre imaginable. Borrowing from the Bible is almost unavoidable.
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I don't know exactly what you're looking for, but I believe the "Left Behind" series is bible based, (although it's the other end of the Bible from the one you propose to use). You might also want to check out a Christian Bookstore to see what they have in stock, or what they can order for you.
Posts: 497 | Registered: Jun 2004
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OCS's Pastwatch deals with biblical events, but that's probably not quite what you're looking for. I don't think many people have dared to do an intentional creative rewrite of the Bible out of fear of offending people. I would guess though, that even the most devout (perhaps even especially the most devout) wouldn't recognize the story for what it is.
Posts: 66 | Registered: Apr 2004
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Luke Shiver? Like lukeshiver luushiver lucifer? You might want to change that to something more threatening because it's hard to think of Satan as having a name that reminds me of Seymour Butts and the like.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Feb 2001
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I've always wanted to see a story where Jesus Christ comes to earth today rather than two thousand years ago. As long as it doesn't get too preachy, I think it would make for an interesting story seeing how different our world would be (No inquisition, no Salem witch trials, etc...), and how it would be changed by his impact.
Posts: 552 | Registered: Jan 2002
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writerPTL: you got it. and don't think just because he's Satan he has to have a "threatening" name... the way i'm portraying him he's not so much a purposefully evil guy as much as just having a different agenda... You probably missed it, but Jethresh Krishtov is the same kind of thing... Jeth-resh Krish-tov is how you split it up into it's syllables... i don't know why i chose to, but i added a syllable to the second name... anyways, i took Jesus Christ and butchered it for that name.
I do the other-name-butchering thing quite often... and in this case it seemed more natural to base the names off of Jesus and Lucifer...
i already read Pastwatch... didn't really look at things in any manner that i feel i need to worry about.
"Left Behind"? i'll see if i can find those in the local library... i don't really see myself buying them
"Many Waters"? okies, I'll look at that one too...
as for going to a Christian bookstore... well, the only Christian bookstore i'm aware of in my area is getting closed down, i don't know if they are even open anymore
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There have also been quite a few allegorical works written, some more obvious than others. The Narnia Chronicles, for example, have a Christ figure in Aslan, and the various witches are all aspects of Satan.
Madeliene L'Engle, as mentioned, has written several sci-fi-ish novels that are Biblically themed.
Another person who has done a bit of that is Stephen Lawhead, with the fantasy novels he writes.
One caution: who is your audience? If you are trying to entice a Christian audience, be careful how sympathetic your Lucifer is. I personally am not at all interested in works that reveal evil to be just good that has been misunderstood. I personally believe that there is true evil in this world, and that one of the many tools Satan himself uses is to disguise himself with an appearance of good.
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If you are going for how devils work to corrupt humans, try reading "The Screwtape Letters" by C.S. Lewis. That's a very interesting read.
But for retelling Bible stories, the only thing that comes to me is "The Epic of Gilgamesh." It has a passage that's very similar to the Flood in Noah's story.
[This message has been edited by Ray (edited March 21, 2005).]
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cvgaru: Eli by Bill Myers has the premise of Jesus coming in modern times rather than the past. From what I've heard it's not the best written, and didn't take the concept quite to realism (for instance, having Los Angeles be called Los Angeles, when there wouldn't have been missionaries without Christ) but it's interesting to see how Jesus and his disciples work in a modern setting.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Feb 2001
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There is a young adult trilogy written by Philip Pullman that deals with quite a few biblical themes. I personally hated the third novel wherein God was revealed to be a doddering fool who sort of accidentally gets killed and no one even notices.
In the trilogy there is an epic quasi-religious battle for souls taking place. It is the closest thing I can think of to what you are looking for.
The first book is called The Golden Compass, followed by The Amber Spyglass and The Subtle Knife.
These were definitely NOT written by a Christian, but maybe that's more the direction you are going.
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There's another series dealing with what would happen if Jesus were born today rather than 2000 years ago. It's a trilogy by Stephen R. Lawhead and Russ Lawhead and the first book is called City of Dreams. (And: It was made into a rock opera. How's THAT for something way out in left field.) Cliched at times, but not a horrible read. Don't worry about taking stories out of the Bible. Do it in a fresh and original way, and it'll be great no matter how old the source. Humanity never changes, not really.
And about the His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman: The first book rocked. It went downhill from there. 'Nuff said.
very interesting books, surprisingly interesting considering the target audience... heh
now that i think about it though, maybe i should re-read them with my own project in mind, thanks for the reminder!
to everyone else: wow, my list of reading material for my project is getting larger and larger! no problem really, just transfer some of the time i'm currently spending on other activities to this one!
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